How to Write a Sentence.
Understanding Structure.
Great writers understand that the
sentence is how you accomplish a
masterpiece.
 Just as Michelangelo began with a
brush stroke and Beethoven began with
a note-great writers begin with a
sentence.

The Sentence
The structure is what gives a sentence
its meaning. Without structure words
cannot express true meaning.
 It is syntax that gives words the power to
relate to each other.
 The words are a miner’s pick which digs
a hole-when you come out the other
side-you have a sentence.

I was already on the second floor
when I heard about the box.
What is interesting about this sentence?
 How many of you could stop reading
after that first sentence of a story, or an
essay?

Sentences are:
A) An organization of items in the world.
 B) A structure of logical relationships.


For example: Look around the room
and pick out four or five items. Write
them down in your writer’s notebook.
 Your turn
My example

My words are “pen” “chair” “garbage
can” and “printer”.
 Your turn: Now create a sentence using at
least four words.
My example

I probably did not write:
 “Chair the shall pen before undoing printer the can garbage from and
proper up remove into throw using it I.”
 Why not? Because the structure is not logical.
My example:
Before using the printer I shall remove the pen from the chair
and throw it in the garbage can.
 That is a logical sequence-the words are the same-yet now the
content is available because of the logical order of the words.
 The number of sentences that can be made is infinite, but how
the words relate to each other is finite.
 So its about words relating to each other: relationships.


 Your Turn: Share your sentences
Structure

My guess is you were all able to organize
the words and create a sentence.
So we “know” the order-we just don’t
“know” the order…..ya know?
 In other words, can anyone explain why
their words in the sentence are
organized that way?

Take this for example:

I shall set the printer on the chair and get my pen out of
the garbage can.

Each of the words in the original list now exists in a logical
relation to the others. “Shall” is now joined to a verb,
“set,” to form an action; “printer” is now the object of that
action, which is performed by “I”; “chair” is now part of a
prepositional phrase (a phrase temporally and spatially
relating objects to one another)- “upon the chair”- which
names the place where the action of the setting occurs.
“And” introduces a sequence that is, structurally, a mirror
image of what precedes it. “Pen” is the object of “shall
get” and “out of the garbage can” names the place where
and the manner in which the pen has been gotten. No
word floats without an anchoring connection within an
overall structure.
Relationships





There is the person or thing performing an
action,
there is the action being performed,
and there is the recipient or object of the
action.
That is the basic logical structure of many
sentences: X does Y to Z.
Ex: Mr. Ham Punched the student.
 Your Turn: Write a short sentence (five words in
length) that fits the relationship sequence.
 Share your sentence and explain the
relationship.
But what about……

Simon drinks slowly.
 Remember the relationship sequence-doer,
doing, done to?
 Explain?
○ Is there a doer?
○ Is there a doing?
○ Is there a done to? Oops!
Explanation
Slowly isn't the object-it gives information
about the act of drinking; it says how the
drinking is being done.; it is done slowly.
 Take my previous example:

 Before using the printer I shall remove the pen
from the chair and throw it in the garbage can.
○ “Before using the printer” gives information about
when the action of removing occurred, and “into
the garbage” gives information about where the
action of throwing ends up.
Your turn

Write the sentence in you writer’s
notebook:
 “Arriving at the house, I opened the car
windows.”
○ Label the doer, doing, done to.
 What is left? What is its purpose?
AnswerDoer- “I”
 Doing- “opened”
 Done to- “the car windows”

 Arriving at the house gives information about
the “Doer” I. The person doing is the one
arriving at the house-gives information.
So….
It may not matter entirely that you know
the parts of speech. What matters is
you know the relationships between the
words. Knowing the terms and
identifying them gives the illusion of
understanding.
 Real understanding comes with the
knowledge of sentence structure and
logical relationships.

If….

One understands that a sentence is a
structure of logical relationships and that
the number of relationships involved is
finite, one understands too that there is
only one error to worry about, the error
of being illogical, and only one rule to
follow: make sure that every component
of your sentences is related to the other
components in a way that is clear and
straight forward.
Understanding:

Is not learning a bunch of rules-but by
coming to know the limited number of
relationships your words, phrases, and
clauses can enter into, and becoming alert
to those times when the relationships are
not established or are unclear: when a
phrase just dangles in space, when a
connective has nothing to connect to, when
a prepositional phrase is in search of a
verb to complement, when a pronoun
cannot be paired with a noun.
For Example
Your Turn: Write in a word that you think
fits with the following three words I have
provided for you. Do this in your writer’s
notebook.
 Colorful ____________________
 Quickly_____________________
 He_____________

Example

Noam Chomsky famously offered the
sequence:
 “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.
 Does the sentence make grammatical
sense?
 Doer? Doing? Done to? (or in this case an
explanation on how its done).
 Is it in the correct sequential order?
Yes

It is a well-formed structure without
meaning.

Chomsky contrasts:

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”


with
“furiously sleep ideas green colorless.”
“furiously sleep ideas green colorless.”
Because the above example from
Chomsky exhibits no logical
relationships whatsoever-it makes no
sense.
 Without form there is no content
 Form, form and form is what matters.
 The only mistake in grammar is making
no sense.

Take this for example:

From the first stanza of Lewis Carroll’s
“Jabberwocky:”
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Write the poem in your writer’s notebook
The Poem
Makes no sense in content-but the
organization, the sequence is logical.
 In your writer’s notebook, re-write the
poem by replacing the words with words
that make sense. In a way that makes a
meaningful sequence. Work with an
elbow partner to create the new poem.
